Aural Sculptors - The Stranglers Live 1976 to the Present

Welcome to Aural Sculptors, a blog aimed at bringing the music of The Stranglers to as wide an audience as possible. Whilst all of the various members of the band that have passed through the ranks since 1974 are accomplished studio musicians, it is on stage where the band have for me had their biggest impact.

As a collector of their live recordings for many years I want to share some of the better quality material with other fans. By selecting the higher quality recordings I hope to present The Stranglers in the best possible light for the benefit of those less familiar with their material than the hardcore fan.

Needless to say, this site will steer well clear of any officially released material. As well as live gigs, I will post demos, radio interviews and anything else that I feel may be of interest.

In addition, occasionally I will post material by other bands, related or otherwise, that mean a lot to me.

Thursday, 5 September 2013

This has cropped up on Youtube in recent days (I think it may be a re-edit of a DVD I did a couple of years ago, but there I could be wrong).

This is just another frustrating reminder of the pro-filmed footage that is, as I write this, degrading in regional TV studio basements, unloved and unviewed. What a waste.

The surviving members of The Clash have been very high profile recently promoting the lavish retrospective called 'Sound System' (which includes unseen footage). Whilst I do not want to compare the two bands, in interviews that I have read, they spoke much about safeguarding their legacy by dragging this material out of the vaults.

2 comments:

I tried to get a production company here to let me have a copy of an archive and the response I got revolved around "even though we have the item you enquired about in our archives, we are not allowed to provide a copy due to copyright restrictions".....bollocks, says I! The world's gone mad, seems to me that you can own, or say that you own anything you like and as long as you don't make it available, nobody is any more the wiser or the richer. So many archives that would be of interest just pointlessly taking up shelf space. ....they'll probably release everything in 100 years when all who are interested are dead. To be honest, there may aswell be no archives if that's the strategy....drives me nuts and defies any form of logic.Rant over...thankyou and goodnight :-)

the clash re issues what have we got 1 a 5 studio album box set[vinyl]2 a 5 studio album box set [cd]3 each album re issued [re mastered]in its own right4 clash hits back a worthless compilation[how many of them have we had for the stranglers]5 sound system [including 5 studio albums]now the other discs included might be great I don't know.then we get the badges poster and some other worthless crap all packaged in a very nice looking box for £90 £120 when first advertised cheapest I saw £78 ask yourself do you really need this if your the type of person who's got the stranglers rattus album on vinyl. on cd. on cd with 3 bonus tracks. on cd as a double cd with black and white. on cd with a 3 track bonus disc.then you will need sound system otherwise save your cash.if you got cash to waste you could always buy the dangerhouse 14 7in boxset reissued by munster records of course it's also on 2 disc cd all songs are also on dangerhouse comp albums why not buy the lot

Behold....

A Pithead Polar Bear

Running Cost Contributions

Hi there all!

Today, I have renewed the subscription for one of the two We Transfer accounts that support the Aural Sculptors site. In order to ensure that the links to the files that are posted on the site remain live and accessible it is necessary to maintain two We Transfer accounts, meaning that the total running costs of the Aural Sculptors blog totals £210 per year.

We Transfer is not the cheapest file sharing service available, nor does it offer the greatest storage capacity (hence the practical need for two accounts), but it is a reliable platform that does meet the needs of the site. Having been bitten hard on the arse before in years gone by with disastrous reliance on both megaupload and Rapidshare, I am reluctant to move away from the current arrangements to a cheaper option.

Since the site was launched (the catharsis of the birth perhaps) in July 2011, the site has featured 900+ posts (most with associated music files) of which over 450 have been directly associated with The Stranglers, in keeping with the whole rationale of the site.

Those of us of a certain vintage will recall the day when bootlegs recordings were difficult to come by and a tape with a poorly photocopied pastel paper cover would set you back a fiver (the equivalent of 6 or so pints in the mid 80’s!). Now however, it is a doddle for people to obtain a good quality recording of a gig, perhaps the first one that they saw by a given band, I dunno. The point is that it is free, shared in good faith by fans for fans.

Aural Sculptors, with its 800,000+ hits to date is not a massive site but it has a reasonable presence in the hierarchy of Stranglers related websites and that is enough for me to keep it going.

Therefore, I would kindly point out that it is possible to make a small contribution towards the running costs of the site. A donation button is located on the right hand panel of the site. In return I will continue in my efforts to keep the site relevant and interesting to likeminded people such as the regular visitors to the site. Additionally, I will do my best to continue to accommodate requests for specific recordings and/or updates of dead links (as best as I can in the time available to me).

It just remains for me to say, again, a big thank to you for your continued support, to those who have donated, commented or shared with me something that you think will be of interest to others.